Samuel von Pufendorf is among the most significant German examples of the polyhistor, a type prevalent in the scientific world of the seventeenth century. He achieved an international reputation, above all, as a proponent of a secularized theory of natural law, a concept that greatly influenced the philosophy of law in the Age of Enlightenment. Pufendorf built on the ideas of Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes, but he was the first to develop a comprehensive, systematic legal philosophy, based on modern natural law, that encompassed all areas of human life. In the first part of his career Pufendorf taught at various universities; in 1677 he left this environment and started working at the courts of absolute rulers. Analogous to this dichotomy in his life, his work manifests two successive major focal points that are not independent from but are affected by each other: his system of natural law and...